Cracker Barrel Quality
 

So tonight I went to Cracker Barrel for supper. I was so disappointed to find out that the fried chicken dinner is only available on Sunday nights... I ended up having pancakes instead. What a disappointment.

It is quite rare for me to eat out, let alone pancakes and I couldn't believe how greasy they were. If I didn't know better I would say they were deep fried or cooked in the same oil they use to fry other things.

Anyone ever work there? How exactly do they cook them that they taste so greasy?

I just wish I could get my $9.70 back I wasted on my meal.

Don't go to Cracker Barrel?

HTSC

That's what I do.

Their chocolate chip pancakes are delicious.

Last year a client gave me a gift card for Cracker Barrel. After a fairly miserable breakfast, we decided to kill the remaining card balance buying overpriced crap from their general store.

I find that I can mitigate my disappointment at places like Cracker Barrel by viewing it as "refeuling" instead of "eating." Kind of puts the expectations on par with the eventual results....

Although I will never set foot in a Cracker Barrel, I can tell you that it is physically impossible to deep fry a pancake without winding up with a fritter.

Making greasy pancakes is not much different from making greasy
anything else: make sure the fat, whatever it is, is at a low enough
temperature that it doesn't drain off well, et voila (or viola, as people
say).

Cracker Barrels used to be okay in, say, the '90s, but since then I
saw a rapid decline, for reasons I don't know. I stopped eating
there, even in the south, even when very hungry, around 2000.

we don't have Cracker Barrel near where we live

however it has become a tradition for my family to stop by one out in Pennsylvania when we go on a trip there, and lately it has been far worse than what attracted me to this restaurant chain before

the service is the same but the food quality has went down, I think

I have successfully avoided all Cracker Barrel restaurants to date and hopefully will continue to do so.

MisterNice

You had your heart set on fried chicken. That wouldn't be greasier than pancakes?

I agree that CB has been in a downward spiral for years. I went last week and couldn't find bunny-in-a-hole - is that what it was called? - where they fry an egg in a cutout hole in a slice of sourdough bread. I still like the catfish with a side of okra, but the hashbrown casserole is not what it once was.

They have excellent blueberry pancakes!

"where they fry an egg in a cutout hole in a slice of sourdough bread." Egg in a blanket?

Egg In a Basket, I think.

OK, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks Cracker Barrel is greasy.

After entering a Cracker Barrel with my Chinese other-half, and being stared at by the 'cracker' customers like we just landed our spaceship in the parking lot, followed by a solo visit to a Cracker Barrel in suburban Atlanta where many of the customers had apparently never seen a real, live Jewish person before, I decided it wasn't worth eating there anymore - and my blood pressure and cholesterol applauded the decision.

Given a choice between two evils, I'd rather eat at Denny's.

Yeah, but Denny's doesn't have a gift shop filled with tasteful souvenirs. :p

lol

I find the complaints about Cracker Barrel in this thread to be confusing. What did you expect? Cracker Barrel is a relatively low priced Southern-style restaurant. The food is not meant to be healthy nor is it going to be anything other than average and greasy. It's comfort food and no more. The appeal is to families traveling along the freeways mainly of the south and the atmosphere hearkens back to colonial days. It is what it is.

Toad in the whole is what it is called in the UK

Somehow, I can't envision a family in their car/van on the freeways of the South with cramps, about an hour after leaving the Cracker Barrel, speeding to get to the nearest rest stop, with mom looking in her purse to see if she has enough tissues to ensure everyone will have some when they get there (in case the rest stop is out of paper), as a sight which "hearkens back to colonial days." :D

Comfort food now, discomfort food after the "Next Exit 45 miles" sign.

I would guess almost all Cracker Barrel diners are fully immune to such discomfort. They may get such symptoms by not eating there.

MisterNice

I got introduced to Cracker Barrel by a colleague when I lived north of ATL. I believe as a breakfast fix it beats Denny's or IHOP and actually is the place where I take friends if they ask for 'authentic' US breakfast. Note: I'm a foreigner ;-)
In a nutshell: for me Cracker Barrel has its very small right of existence.

Agreed. I would say Cracker Barrel defines what is good and bad about American cooking. The Good: Large portions, fast service, greasy, and lots of sugar and salt. The Bad: see the good

^

What quality? ;)

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Sorry. That isn't comfort food in my opinion. I'm a big comfort food fan. I would call Cracker Barrel electroconvulsive therapy food maybe, but not comfort food.

Spot on, on both points.

I probably haven't been to a Cracker Barrel since the late 90s. I remember huge waits at the peak meal times, but, for the life of me, I can't figure out what all the fuss was about.

I think what you in the NYC area and what the South think of as comfort food are not the same. I'm guessing your standards for quality are different as well.

I believe that's "toad in the hole," (no "w").

My dad called them "peek-a-boo eggs."

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One of my all time favorite comfort food places wad Threadgills in Austin. I do insist on quality though. Like at Threadgills.

My first and only time at a CB was last November in Titusville, FL. I was with two other Atlantis shuttle launch Tweetup-pers - one from CA/NY and the other from Morocco. I don't remember what any of us ordered, but I do know I had the greens as a side. Yuck.

During our meal, the Moroccan said something to the effect of "so this is typical food of the South?" Us: "Noooooooo."

^ I went to Threadgill's during AUS DO in February and saw it on Groupon earlier this week (or last week).

My partner and I make a conscious effort to avoid the chain while on the road both for the bad food and its policy of blatant discrimination against LGBT employees. I highly recommend buying a copy of Jane and Michael Stern's book "Roadfood" to find great independent restaurants on the highways and byways of this great country that are worth patronizing.

Never had a problem with the one near me. Chicken & Dumplings every time^

Toad in the hole in the UK is Yorkshire Pudding Batter poured over browned sausages and baked. Served with onion gravy.^

I had breakfast at a CB. Once. I had lunch at a CB. Once.

Southern food doesn't translate well into a chain atmosphere, though I have found Southern food done exceedingly well in a few cafeterias. Any cuisine can become a letdown, given a need to commercialize and a clientele that doesn't look too closely into the issue of authenticity.

Not saying that CB falls into either category, but saying that certain narratives come to mind when a diner is confronted with boiled turnip greens over which fried bacon has been ladled (rather than the greens being boiled with the bacon). Or a breakfast gravy called "sawmill" that one might unkindly remember as having been "sawdust."

On the positive side, if a chain has a lot of customers, which CB does, it must be doing something right. Perhaps if I ever revisited, I might change my mind, but there are too many convenience store/Exxon/Shell stations that sell premade tuna sandwiches that are more likely to be of interest to me.

One thing I did appreciate very much about a CB. I remembered a candy called Valomilk from childhood. Couldn't find it elsewhere--evidently the manufacturing process is so exacting that the candy can't be more widely distributed?-- but I located it at a CB on a driving trip one day.

So good. ^

I looked at Threadgills website. The food looks great and the prices are reasonable for an independent restaurant. I'd guess Cracker Barrel prices are less expensive and there's no way you can have that kind of quality and prices in a chain. Threadgills sounds like the prefect Triple D kind of place. I'd like to try it the next time I get to Austin.

Cracker Barrel would not be bad if it were not for all the racket made by families and their children. Food is passable if one is really hungary.

The closest I've been to really hungary is really austria. I did not eat at Cracker Barrel there.

My memory of UK "Toad in the Hole" was a slice of bread, hole in the middle, placed in skillet with a bit of hot fat/grease, egg broken in hole, the result fried for a while. About as luscious as it sounds.....(but then it was the Royal Navy version, a venue given to such delicacies as "Spotted Dick").

"Slumgullion, anyone?"

I'm no fan of Cracker Barrel, if for no other resons than (a) the biscuits are atrocious, (b) the cornbread is sweetened, heretical at best, and (c) the cooks routinely fail to salt the grits, a dish which must be salted during prep. The only possible saving grace is that CB seems the only "chain" which lists "Country Ham" on the menu and serves a reasonable facsimile thereof.